The Godidea of the Ancients by Eliza Burt Gamble

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Title: The God-Idea of the Ancients
or Sex in Religion

Author: Eliza Burt Gamble

Release Date: November 26, 2009 [EBook #639]
Last Updated: January 25, 2013

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS ***

Produced by Charles Keller, and David Widger

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS

OR SEX IN RELIGION

By Eliza Burt Gamble

Author of "The Evolution of Woman"

PREFACE.

Much of the material for this volume was collected during the time that I was preparing for the press the Evolution of Woman, or

while searching for data bearing on the subject of sex-specialization. While preparing that book for publication, it was my intention to
include within it this branch of my investigation, but wishing to obtain certain facts relative to the foundations of religious belief and
worship which were not accessible at that time, and knowing that considerable labor and patience would be required in securing these
facts, I decided to publish the first part of the work, withholding for the time being that portion of it pertaining especially to the
development of the God-idea.

As mankind construct their own gods, or as the prevailing ideas of the unknowable reflect the inner consciousness of human beings,

a trustworthy history of the growth of religions must correspond to the processes involved in the mental, moral, and social development
of the individual and the nation.

By means of data brought forward in these later times relative to the growth of the God-idea, it is observed that an independent

chain of evidence has been produced in support of the facts recently set forth bearing upon the development of the two diverging lines
of sexual demarcation. In other words, it has been found that sex is the fundamental fact not only in the operations of Nature but in the
construction of a god.

In the Evolution of Woman it has been shown that the peculiar inheritance of the two sexes, female and male, is the result of the bias

given to these separate lines of development during the earliest periods of sex-differentiation; and, as this division of labor was a

necessary step in the evolutionary processes, the rate of progress depended largely on the subsequent adjustment of these two primary
elements or forces. A comprehensive study of prehistoric records shows that in an earlier age of existence upon the earth, at a time
when woman's influence was in the ascendancy over that of man, human energy was directed by the altruistic characters which
originated in and have been transmitted through the female; but after the decline of woman's power, all human institutions, customs,
forms, and habits of thought are seen to reflect the egoistic qualities acquired by the male.

Nowhere is the influence of sex more plainly manifested than in the formulation of religious conceptions and creeds. With the rise of

male power and dominion, and the corresponding repression of the natural female instincts, the principles which originally constituted
the God-idea gradually gave place to a Deity better suited to the peculiar bias which had been given to the male organism. An
anthropomorphic god like that of the Jews—a god whose chief attributes are power and virile might—could have had its origin only
under a system of masculine rule.

Religion is especially liable to reflect the vagaries and weaknesses of human nature; and, as the forms and habits of thought

connected with worship take a firmer hold on the mental constitution than do those belonging to any other department of human
experience, religious conceptions should be subjected to frequent and careful examination in order to perceive, if possible, the extent to
which we are holding on to ideas which are unsuited to existing conditions.

In an age when every branch of inquiry is being subjected to reasonable criticism, it would seem that the origin and growth of

religion should be investigated from beneath the surface, and that all the facts bearing upon it should be brought forward as a
contribution to our fund of general information. As well might we hope to gain a complete knowledge of human history by studying only
the present aspect of society, as to expect to reach reasonable conclusions respecting the prevailing God-idea by investigating the
various creeds and dogmas of existing faiths.

The object of this volume is not only to furnish a brief outline of religious growth, but to show the effect which each of the two

forces, female and male, has had on the development of our present God-idea, which investigation serves to accentuate the
conclusions arrived at in the Evolution of Woman relative to the inheritance of each of the two lines of sexual demarcation.

E.B.G.

CONTENTS

PREFACE.

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I. SEX THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOD-IDEA

CHAPTER II. TREE, PLANT, AND FRUIT WORSHIP

CHAPTER III. SUN-WORSHIP—FEMALE AND MALE ENERGIES IN THE SUN

CHAPTER IV. THE DUAL GOD OF THE ANCIENTS A TRINITY ALSO

CHAPTER V. SEPARATION OF THE FEMALE AND HALE ELEMENTS IN THE DEITY

CHAPTER VI. CIVILIZATION OF AN ANCIENT RACE

CHAPTER VII. CONCEALMENT OF THE EARLY DOCTRINES

CHAPTER VIII. THE ORIGINAL GOD-IDEA OF THE ISRAELITES

CHAPTER IX. THE PHOENICIAN AND HEBREW GOD SET OR SETH

CHAPTER X. ANCIENT SPECULATIONS CONCERNING CREATION

CHAPTER XI. FIRE AND PHALLIC WORSHIP

CHAPTER XII. AN ATTEMPT TO PURIFY THE SENSUALIZED FAITHS

CHAPTER XIII. CHRISTIANITY A CONTINUATION OF PAGANISM

CHAPTER XIV. CHRISTIANITY A CONTINUATION OF PAGANISM—(Continued)

CHAPTER XV. CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND

CHAPTER XVI. STONES OR COLUMNS AS THE DEITY

CHAPTER XVII. SACRIFICES

CHAPTER XVIII. THE CROSS AND A DYING SAVIOR

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Through a study of the primitive god-idea as manifested in monumental records in various parts of the world; through scientific

investigation into the early religious conceptions of mankind as expressed by symbols which appear in the architecture and decorations
of sacred edifices and shrines; by means of a careful examination of ancient holy objects and places still extant in every quarter of the
globe, and through the study of antique art, it is not unlikely that a line of investigation has been marked out whereby a tolerably correct
knowledge of the processes involved in our present religious systems may be obtained. The numberless figures and sacred emblems
which appear carved in imperishable stone in the earliest cave temples; the huge towers, monoliths, and rocking stones found in nearly
every country of the globe, and which are known to be closely connected with primitive belief and worship, and the records found on
tablets which are being unearthed in various parts of the world, are, with the unravelling of extinct tongues, proving an almost
inexhaustible source for obtaining information bearing upon the early history of the human race, and, together, furnish indisputable
evidence of the origin, development, and unity of religious faiths.

By comparing the languages used by the earlier races to express their religious conceptions; by observing the similarity in the

mythoses and sacred appellations among all tribe and nations, an through the discovery of the fact that the legends extant in the various
countries of the globe are identical, or have the same foundation, it is probable that a clue has already been obtained whereby an
outline of the religious history of the human family from a period even as remote as the "first dispersion," or from a time when one race
comprehended the entire population of the globe, maybe traced. Humboldt in his Researches observes: "In every part of the globe, on
the ridge of the Cordilleras as well as in the Isle of Samothrace, in the Aegean Sea, fragments of primitive languages are preserved in
religious rites."

Regarding the identity of the fundamental ideas contained in the various systems of religion, both past and present, Hargrave

Jennings, in referring to a parallel drawn by Sir William Jones, between the deities of Meru and Olympus, observes:

"All our speculations tend to the same conclusions. One day it is a discovery of cinerary vases, the next, it is etymological research;

yet again it is ethnological investigation, and the day after, it is the publication of unsuspected tales from the Norse; but all go to heap
up proof of our consanguinity with the peoples of history—and of an original general belief, we might add."

That the religious systems of India and Egypt were originally the same, there can be at the present time no reasonable doubt. The

fact noted by various writers, of the British Sepoys, who, on their overland route from India, upon beholding the ruins of Dendera,
prostrated themselves before the remains of the ancient temples and offered adoration to them, proves the identity of Indian and
Egyptian deities. These foreign devotees, being asked to explain the reason of their strange conduct declared that they "saw sculptured
before them the gods of their country."

Upon the subject of the identity of Eastern religions, Wilford remarks that one and the same code both of theology and of fabulous

history, has been received through a range or belt about forty degrees broad across the old continent, in a southeast and northwest
direction from the eastern shores of the Malaga peninsula to the western extremity of the British Isles, that, through this immense range
the same religious notions reappear in various places under various modifications, as might be expected; and that there is not a greater
difference between the tenets and worship of the Hindoos and the Greeks than exists between the churches of Home and Geneva.

Concerning the universality of certain religious beliefs and opinions, Faber, commenting upon the above statement of Wilford,

observes that, immense as is this territorial range, it is by far too limited to include the entire phenomenon, that the observation

"applies with equal propriety to the entire habitable globe; for the arbitrary rites and opinions of every pagan nation bear so close a

resemblance to each other, that such a coincidence can only have been produced by their having had a common origin. Barbarism itself
has not been able to efface the strong primeval impression. Vestiges of the ancient general system may be traced in the recently

discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean; and, when the American world was first opened to the hardy adventurers of Europe, its
inhabitants from north to south venerated, with kindred ceremonies and kindred notions, the gods of Egypt and Hindostan, of Greece
and Italy, of Phoenicia and Britain."(1)

1) Pagan Idolatry, book i., ch. i.

"Though each religion has its own peculiar growth, the seed from which they spring is everywhere the same."(2)

2) Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 48.

The question as to whether the identity of conception and the similarity in detail observed in religious rites, ceremonies, and symbols

in the various countries of the globe are due to the universal law of unity which governs human development, or whether, through the
dispersion of one original people, the early conceptions of a Deity were spread broadcast over the entire earth, is perhaps not settled;
yet, from the facts which have been brought forward during the last century, the latter theory seems altogether probable, such
divergence in religious ideas as is observed among the various peoples of the earth being attributable to variations in temperament
caused by changed conditions of life. In other words, the divergence in the course of religious development has doubtless been due to
environment.

In an attempt to understand the history of the growth of the god-idea, the fact should be borne in mind that, from the earliest

conception of a creative force in the animal and vegetable world to the latest development in theological speculation, there has never
been what might consistently be termed a new religion. On the contrary, religion like everything else is subject to the law of growth;
therefore the faiths of to-day are the legitimate result, or outcome, of the primary idea of a Deity developed in accordance with the
laws governing the peculiar instincts which have been in the ascendancy during the life of mankind on the earth.

The erroneous impression which under a belief in the unknown has come to prevail, namely, that the moral law is the result of

religion; or, in other words, that the human conscience is in some manner dependent on supernaturalism for its origin and maintenance,
is, with a better and clearer understanding of the past history of the development of the human race, being gradually dispelled. On one
point we may reasonably rest assured that the knowledge of right and wrong and our sense of justice and right-living have been
developed quite independently of all religious beliefs. The moral law embodied in the golden rule is not an outgrowth of mysticism, or
of man's notions of the unknowable; but, on the contrary, is the result of experience, and was formulated in response to a recognized
law of human necessity,—a law which involves the fundamental principle of progress. The history of human development shows
conclusively that mankind GREW into the recognition of the moral law, that through sympathy, or a desire for the welfare of others,—a
character which had its root in maternal affection,—conscience and the moral sense were evolved.

While the moral law and the conscience may not be accounted as in any sense the result of man's ideas concerning the unknowable,

neither can the errors and weaknesses developed in human nature be regarded as the result of religion. Although the sexual excesses
which during three or four thousand years were practiced as sacred rites, and treated as part and parcel of religion in various parts of
the world, have had the effect to stimulate and strengthen the animal nature in man, yet these rites may not be accounted as the primary
cause of the supremacy of the lower nature over the higher faculties. On the contrary, the impulse which has been termed religion, with
all the vagaries which its history presents, is to be regarded more as an effect than as a cause. The stage of a nation's development
regulates its religion. Man creates his own gods; they are powerless to change him.

As written history records only those events in human experience which belong to a comparatively recent period of man's existence,

and as the primitive conceptions of a Deity lie buried beneath ages of corruption, glimpses of the earlier faiths of mankind, as has
already been stated, must be looked for in the traditions, monuments, and languages of extinct races.

In reviewing this matter we shall doubtless observe the fact that if the stage of a nation's growth is indicated by its religious

conceptions, and if remnants of religious beliefs are everywhere present in the languages, traditions, and monuments of the past through
a careful study of these subjects we may expect to gain a tolerably correct understanding not alone of the growth of the god-idea but
of the stage of development reached by the nations which existed prior to the beginning of the historic age. We shall be enabled also to
perceive whether or not the course of human development during the intervening ages has been continuous, or whether, for some cause
hitherto unexplained, true progress throughout a portion of this time has been arrested, thus producing a backward movement, or
degeneracy.

If we would unravel the mysteries involved in present religious faiths, we should begin not by attempting to analyze or explain any

existing system or systems of belief and worship. Such a course is likely to end not only in confusion and in a subsequent denial of the
existence of the religious nature in mankind, but is liable, also, to create an aversion for and a distrust of the entire subject of religious
experience. In view of this fact it would appear to be not only useless but exceedingly unwise to spend one's time in attempting to gain
a knowledge of this subject simply by studying the later developments in its history.

If we are really desirous of obtaining information regarding present religious phenomena, it is plain that we should adopt the scientific

method and turn our attention to the remote past, where, by careful and systematic investigation, we are enabled to perceive the
earliest conception of a creative force and the fundamental basis of all religious systems, from which may be traced the gradual
development of the god-idea.

CHAPTER I. SEX THE FOUNDATION OF THE

GOD-IDEA.

In the study of primitive religion, the analogy existing between the growth of the god-idea and the development of the human race,

and especially of the two sex-principles, is everywhere clearly apparent.

"Religion is to be found alone with its justification and explanation in the relations of the sexes. There and therein only."(3)

3) Hargrave Jennings, Phallicism.

As the conception of a deity originated in sex, or in the creative agencies female and male which animate Nature, we may

reasonably expect to find, in the history of the development of the two sex-principles and in the notions entertained concerning them
throughout past ages, a tolerably correct account of the growth of the god-idea. We shall perceive that during an earlier age of human
existence, not only were the reproductive powers throughout Nature, and especially in human beings and in animals, venerated as the
Creator, but we shall find also that the prevailing ideas relative to the importance of either sex in the office of reproduction decided the
sex of this universal creative force. We shall observe also that the ideas of a god have always corresponded with the current opinions
regarding the importance of either sex in human society. In other words, so long as female power and influence were in the
ascendency, the creative force was regarded as embodying the principles of the female nature; later, however, when woman's power
waned, and the supremacy of man was gained, the god-idea began gradually to assume the male characters and attributes.

Through scientific research the fact has been observed that, for ages after life appeared on the earth, the male had no separate

existence; that the two sex-principles, the sperm and the germ, were contained within one and the same individual. Through the
processes of differentiation, however, these elements became detached, and with the separation of the male from the female, the
reproductive functions were henceforth confided to two separate individuals.

As originally, throughout Nature, the female was the visible organic unit within whom was contained the exclusive creative power,

and as throughout the earlier ages of life on the earth she comprehended the male, it is not perhaps singular that, even after the
appearance of mankind on the earth, the greater importance of the mother element in human society should have been recognized; nor,
as the power to bring forth coupled with perceptive wisdom originally constituted the Creator, that the god-idea should have been
female instead of male.

From the facts to be observed in relation to this subject, it is altogether probable that for ages the generating principle throughout

Nature was venerated as female; but with that increase of knowledge which was the result of observation and experience, juster or
more correct ideas came to prevail, and subsequently the great fructifying energy throughout the universe came to be regarded as a
dual indivisible force—female and male. This force, or agency, constituted one God, which, as woman's functions in those ages were
accounted of more importance than those of man, was oftener worshipped under the form of a female figure.

Neith, Minerva, Athene, and Cybele, the most important deities of their respective countries, were adored as Perceptive Wisdom,

or Light, while Ceres and others represented Fertility. With the incoming of male dominion and supremacy, however, we observe the
desire to annul the importance of the female and to enthrone one all-powerful male god whose chief attributes were power and might.

Notwithstanding the efforts which during the historic period have been put forward to magnify the importance of the male both in

human affairs and in the god-idea, still, no one, I think, can study the mythologies and traditions of the nations of antiquity without being
impressed with the prominence given to the female element, and the deeper the study the stronger will this impression grow.

During a certain stage of human development, religion was but a recognition of and a reliance upon the vivifying or fructifying forces

throughout Nature, and in the earlier ages of man's career, worship consisted for the most part in the celebration of festivals at stated
seasons of the year, notably during seed-time and harvest, to commemorate the benefits derived from the grain field and vineyard.

Doubtless the first deified object was Gaia, the Earth. As within the bosom of the earth was supposed to reside the fructifying, life-

giving power, and as from it were received all the bounties of life, it was female. It was the Universal Mother, and to her as to no other
divinity worshipped by mankind, was offered a spontaneity of devotion and a willing acknowledgment of dependence. Thus far in the
history of mankind no temples dedicated to an undefined and undefinable God had been raised. The children of Mother Earth met in
the open air, without the precincts of any man-made shrine, and under the aerial canopy of heaven, acknowledged the bounties of the
great Deity and their dependence upon her gifts. She was a beneficent and all-wise God, a tender and loving parent—a mother, who
demanded no bleeding sacrifice to reconcile her to her children. The ceremonies observed at these festive seasons consisted for the
most part in merry-making and in general thanksgiving, in which the gratitude of the worshippers found expression in song and dance,
and in invocations to their Deity for a return or continuance of her gifts.

Subsequently, through the awe and reverence inspired by the mysteries involved in birth and life, the adoration of the creative

principles in vegetable existence became supplemented by the worship of the creative functions in human beings and in animals. The
earth, including the power inherent in it by which the continuity of existence is maintained, and by which new forms are continuously
called into life, embodied the idea of God; and, as this inner force was regarded as inherent in matter, or as a manifestation of it, in
process of time earth and the heavens, body and spirit, came to be worshipped under the form of a mother and her child, this figure
being the highest expression of a Creator which the human mind was able to conceive. Not only did this emblem represent fertility, or
the fecundating energies of Nature, but with the power to create were combined or correlated all the mental qualities and attributes of
the two sexes. In fact the whole universe was contained in the Mother idea—the child, which was sometimes female, sometimes male,
being a scion or offshoot from the eternal or universal unit.

Underlying all ancient mythologies may be observed the idea that the earth, from which all things proceed, is female. Even in the

mythology of the Finns, Lapps, and Esths, Mother Earth is the divinity adored. Tylor calls attention to the same idea in the mythology
of England,

"from the days when the Anglo-Saxon called upon the Earth, 'Hal wes thu folde fira modor' (Hail, thou Earth, men's mother), to the

time when mediaeval Englishmen made a riddle of her asking 'Who is Adam's mother?' and poetry continued what mythology was
letting fall, when Milton's Archangel promised Adam a life to last

'... till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy Mother's lap.' "(4)

4) Primitive Culture, vol. i., p. 295.

In the old religion the sky was the husband of the earth and the earth was mother of all the gods.(5) In the traditions of past ages the

fact is clearly perceived that there was a time when the mother was not only the one recognized parent on earth, but that the female
principle was worshipped as the more important creative force throughout Nature.

5) Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 279.

Doubtless the worship of the female energy prevailed under the matriarchal system, and was practised at a time when women were

the recognized heads of families and when they were regarded as the more important factors in human society. The fact has been
shown in a previous work that after women began to leave their homes at marriage, and after property, especially land, had fallen
under the supervision and control of men, the latter, as they manipulated all the necessaries of life and the means of supplying them,
began to regard themselves as superior beings, and later, to claim that as a factor in reproduction, or creation, the male was the more
important. With this change the ideas of a Deity also began to undergo a modification. The dual principle necessary to creation, and
which had hitherto been worshipped as an indivisible unity, began gradually to separate into its individual elements, the male
representing spirit, the moving or forming force in the generative processes, the female being matter—the instrument through which
spirit works. Spirit which is eternal had produced matter which is destructible. The fact will be observed that this doctrine prevails to a
greater or less extent in the theologies of the present time.

A little observation and reflection will show us that during this change in the ideas relative to a creative principle, or God, descent

and the rights of succession which had hitherto been reckoned through the mother were changed from the female to the male line, the
father having in the meantime become the only recognized parent. In the Eumenides of Aeschylus, the plea of Orestes in extenuation of
his crime is that he is not of kin to his mother. Euripides, also, puts into the mouth of Apollo the same physiological notion, that she who
bears the child is only its nurse. The Hindoo Code of Menu, which, however, since its earliest conception, has undergone numberless
mutilations to suit the purposes of the priests, declares that "the mother is but the field which brings forth the plant according to
whatsoever seed is sown."

Although, through the accumulation of property in masses and the capture of women for wives, men had succeeded in gaining the

ascendancy, and although the doctrine had been propounded that the father is the only parent, thereby reversing the established
manner of reckoning descent, still, as we shall hereafter observe, thousands of years were required to eliminate the female element
from the god-idea.

We must not lose sight of the fact that human society was first organized and held together by means of the gens, at the head of

which was a woman. The several members of this organization were but parts of one body cemented together by the pure principle of
maternity, the chief duty of these members being to defend and protect each other if needs be with their life blood. The fact has been
observed, in an earlier work, that only through the gens was the organization of society possible. Without it mankind could have
accomplished nothing toward its own advancement.

Thus, throughout the earlier ages of human existence, at a time when mankind lived nearer to Nature and before individual wealth

and the stimulation of evil passions had engendered superstition, selfishness, and distrust, the maternal element constituted not only the
binding and preserving principle in human society, but, together with the power to bring forth, constituted also the god-idea, which
idea, as has already been observed, at a certain stage in the history of the race was portrayed by a female figure with a child in her
arms.

From all sources of information at hand are to be derived evidences of the fact that the earliest religion of which we have any

account was pure Nature-worship, that whatever at any given time might have been the object adored, whether it were the earth, a
tree, water, or the sun, it was simply as an emblem of the great energizing agency in Nature. The moving or forming force in the
universe constituted the god-idea. The figure of a mother with her child signified not only the power to bring forth, but Perceptive
Wisdom, or Light, as well.

As through a study of Comparative Ethnology, or through an investigation into the customs, traditions, and mythoses of extant races

in the various stages of development, have been discovered the beginnings of the religious idea and the mental qualities which among
primitive races prompted worship, so, also, through extinct tongues and the symbolism used in religious rites and ceremonies, many of
the processes have been unearthed whereby the original and beautiful conceptions of the Deity, and the worship inspired by the
operations of Nature, and especially the creative functions in human beings gradually became obscured by the grossest ideas and the
vilest practices. The symbols which appear in connection with early religious rites and ceremonies, and under which are veiled the
conceptions of a still earlier and purer age, when compared with subsequently developed notions relative to the same objects, indicate
plainly the change which has been wrought in the original ideas relative to the creative functions, and furnish an index to the direction
which human development, or growth, has taken.

As the human race constructs its own gods, and as by the conceptions involved in the deities worshipped at any given time in the

history of mankind we are able to form a correct estimate of the character, temperament, and aspirations of the worshippers, so the
history of the gods of the race, as revealed to us through the means of symbols, monumental records, and the investigation of extinct
tongues, proves that from a stage of Nature worship and a pure and rational conception of the creative forces in the universe, mankind,
in course of time, degenerated into mere devotees of sensual pleasure. With the corruption of human nature and the decline of mental
power which followed the supremacy of the animal instincts, the earlier abstract idea of God was gradually lost sight of, and man
himself in the form of a potentate or ruler, together with the various emblems of virility, came to be worshipped as the Creator. From
adorers of an abstract creative principle, mankind had lapsed into worshippers of the symbols under which this principle had been

veiled.

Although at certain stages in the history of the human race the evils, which as a result of the supremacy of the ruder elements

developed in mankind had befallen the race were lamented and bewailed, they could not be suppressed. Man had become a lost and
ruined creature. The golden age had passed away.

CHAPTER II. TREE, PLANT, AND FRUIT

WORSHIP.

When mankind first began to perceive the fact of an all-pervading agency throughout Nature, by or through which everything is

produced, and when they began to speculate on the origin of life and the final cause and destiny of things, it is not in the least
remarkable that various objects and elements, such as fire, air, water, trees, etc., should in their turn have been venerated as in some
special manner embodying the divine essence. Neither is it surprising although this universal agency was regarded as one, or as a dual
entity, they should have recognized its manifold expressions or manifestations.

To primitive man, the visible sources whence proceeded his daily sustenance doubtless constituted the first objects of his regard and

adoration. Hence, in addition to the homage paid to the earth, in due course of time would be added the worship of trees, upon which
the early race was directly dependent for food. At a time when the art of agriculture had not been attained, all such trees as yielded
their fruit for the support of the human race, and which afforded to mankind pleasant beverages or cooling shade, would come to be
regarded as embodying the universal beneficent principle—the great creating and preserving agency of Nature, and therefore as proper
objects of veneration.

According to the Phoenician theogony, "the first gods which were worshipped by oblations and sacrifices were the fruits of the

earth, on which they and their descendants lived as their forefathers had done."

Although, after the art of agriculture had been developed, mankind was gradually relieved from its past dependence on the tree as a

means of support, it nevertheless continued to be regarded with veneration as an emblem of creative power or of productive energy.

Among the traditions and monuments of nearly every country of the globe are to be found traces of a sacred tree—a Tree of Life. In

various countries there appear two traditional trees, the one typical of the continuation of physical life, the other representing spiritual
life, or the life of the soul. After the age of pure Nature-worship had passed, however, and serpent, fire, and phallic faiths had been
introduced, the original signification of the tree, like that of all other religious emblems, became considerably changed. Through its
energies, or life-giving properties, existence had long been maintained, and for this reason, as has already been observed, it became an
object of veneration; but, after the reproductive power in man had risen to the dignity of a supreme God, the tree, to the masses of the
people, became a symbol of the physical, life-giving energy in mortals and in animals. In other words, it became a phallic emblem
representing the continuation of existence, or the power to reproduce or continue life on the earth. As a religious symbol it became the
traditional Tree of Life.

The tree, like nearly every other object in nature, was and still is, in various parts of the world, either female or male, and all ideas

connected with it are sacred and closely interwoven with sex.

The extent to which trees have been venerated in past ages seems to be little understood, and there are doubtless few persons, at

the present time, who would willingly believe that all along the religious stream, from its source to its latest developed branches, are to
be observed traces of this ancient worship, which, in its earliest stages, was simply a recognition of Nature's bounties.

Barlow, in his work on Symbolism, says that "the most generally received symbol of life is a tree—as also the most appropriate."
Again the same writer observes: "Besides the monumental evidence thus furnished of a sacred tree, or Tree of Life, there is an

historical and traditional evidence of the same thing, found in the early literature of various nations, in the customs, and popular usages."
(6) As tree- and sun-worship, or the adoration of Nature's processes, finally became interwoven with phallic faiths, its history can be
understood only after these later developments in the religious stream have been examined, or after the true significance of the serpent
as a religious emblem, and the various ideas connected with the traditional Tree of Life, have been exposed.

6) Essays on Symbolism, p. 84.

The palm, the pine, the oak, the banian, or bo, and many other species of trees, have, at different times, and by various nations,

been invested with divine honors; but, in oriental countries, by far the most sacred among them is the Ficus Religiosa, or the holy bo
tree of India. Something of the true significance of the traditional Tree of Life may be observed in the ideas connected with the worship
of this emblem. The fig, when planted with the palm, as it frequently is in the East, near temples and holy shrines, is regarded as a
peculiarly sacred object. When entwining the palm, which is male, it is always female; from their embrace Kalpia, or passion, is
developed. This union causes the continuation of existence and the "revolutions of time." The whole constitutes the Tree of Life.

In Ceylon, there stands at the present time a tree which we are told is still worshipped by every follower of Buddha. It is a sacred

bo, or Ficus Religiosa, which stands adjacent to an ancient holy shrine known as the Brazen Monastery, now in ruins. Of this tree
Forlong remarks:

"Though now amidst ruins and wild forests, and although having stood thus in solitary desolation for some 1500 years, yet there it

still grows, and is worshipped and deeply revered by more millions of our race than any other god, prophet, or idol, which the world
has ever seen."(7)

7) Rivers of Life, vol. i., p. 35.

This tree is sacred to Sakyu Mooni, is 2200 years old, and is said to be a slip from a tree planted by Bood Gaya, one of the three

former Buddhas who, like Sakyu Mooni, visited Ceylon. Under the parent of this tree the great prophet reposed after he had attained
perfect rest, or after he had overcome the flesh and become Buddha. It was under a bo tree that Mai, Queen of Heaven, brought him
forth, and, in fact, very many of the most important incidents of his life are closely connected with this sacred emblem.

In an allusion to the bo tree of Ceylon, a slip of which is said to have been carried from India to that island by a certain priestess in

the year 307 B.C., Forlong observes:

"This wonderful idol has furnished shoots to half Asia, and every shoot is trained as much as possible like the parent, and like it,

also, enclosed and tended. Men watch and listen for signs and sounds from this holy tree just as the priests of Dodona did beneath
their rustling oaks, and, as many people, even of these somewhat sceptical days, still do, beneath the pulpits of their pope, priest, or
other oracle."(8)

8) Rivers of Life, vol. i., p, 36.

The sacred Ficus is worshipped in India and in many of the Polynesian islands.
Regarding the palm, Inman assures us that it is emblematical of the active male energy, or the continuation of existence.(9)

9) Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. ii., p. 448.

Within the legends underlying the Jewish religion, it will be remembered that the tree appears mysteriously connected with the

beginning of life and is interwoven with the first ideas of human action and experience. The literal sense, however, of the allegory in
Genesis concerning the woman, the tree, and the serpent, and its meaning as generally accepted by laymen and the uneducated among
the priesthood, has little in common with its true significance as understood by the initiated.

In Vedic times, the home tree was worshipped as a god, and to the exhilarating properties in its juice was ascribed that subtle

quality which was regarded as the life-giving, or creative, energy supposed to reside in heat, and which was closely connected with
passion or procreative energy. This quality was their Bacchus, Dionysos, or god-idea—the creator not alone of physical existence, but
of good and evil as well. It was the Destroyer, yet the Regenerator, of life.

Of the Zoroastrian home, or sacred tree, which by the Persians was worshipped for thousands of years, Layard remarks: "The plant

or its product was called the mystical body of God, the living water or food of eternal life, when duly consecrated and administered
according to Zoroastrian rites." It has been suggested, and not without reason, that to this idea of the ancients, respecting the sacred
character of the properties of the home juice, may be traced the "origin of the celebration of Jewish holy or paschal suppers and other
eucharistic rites."

Although by the ancients water was sometimes regarded as the original principle, later, wine, or the intoxicating quality within it,

came to constitute the god-idea. It was spirit, while water was matter; hence, in the sacraments, water and wine were commingled,
wine representing the essence or blood of God; water, at the same time, standing for the people. Cyprian, the bishop martyr, while
contending for the use of wine in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, makes use of the following argument:

"The Holy Spirit also is not silent in the Psalms on the sacrament of this thing, when He makes mention of the Lord's Cup, and says

'Thy intoxicating cup how excellent it is!' Now the cup which intoxicates is assuredly mingled with wine, for water cannot intoxicate
anybody. And the Cup of the Lord in such wise inebriates, as Noe also was intoxicated drinking wine in Genesis. ... For because
Christ bore us all, in that he also bore our sins, we see that in the water is understood the people, but in the wine is showed the blood
of Christ.... Thus, therefore, in consecrating the Cup of the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, even as wine alone cannot be offered.
For if anyone offer wine only, the blood of Christ is dissociated from us; but if the water be alone, the people are dissociated from
Christ."(10)

10) Epistles of Cyprian, vol. i., pp. 215-217.

The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, at which wine is mysteriously converted into the essence of Deity, or into the blood of Christ,

is without doubt a relic of the idea once entertained regarding the homa tree. Certain writers entertain the opinion that from the use of
the sacred homa juice have arisen various religious practices and rites, such for instance as offering oblations to the gods, anointing holy
stones, and pouring wine on sacred hills, also the custom of pledging oaths over glasses of wine.

The May pole, a decidedly phallic emblem, whose festivals until a very recent time were celebrated in England by the old as well as

the young, was usually if not always sprinkled with wine. From the accounts which we have of this sacred emblem and its festival, it
seems that no royal edict nor priestly denunciation was sufficient to expel it from the country.

According to Dr. Stevenson, the festival of Holi or the worship of Holika Devata, in the island of Ceylon, "has a close resemblance

to the English festival of the May-pole, which originated in a religious ceremony or festival of the Cushites (called Phoenicians) who
anciently occupied Western Europe."(11)

11) Quoted by Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations, p. 223.

The ash is the Scandinavian Tree of Life, and, like the sacred trees of all nations, is emblematical of the continuation of existence.

This tree has a triple root, which peculiarity doubtless accounts for its sacred character. It is both female and male, and is said to be
regarded as a "sort of Logos or Wisdom." It is the first emanation from the Deity, and yet a Trinity in Unity. To insult or injure this tree
was sacrilege, to cut it down was an offense punishable with death.

In the old Egyptian and Zoroastrian story, appear the descriptions of two Trees of Life, also a Tree of Knowledge. In the accounts

given of these trees, the Ficus, the female Tree of Life, represents the life of the soul, while the palm, the male Tree of Life, is that
which gives physical life, which also is the true significance of the word "lord." When, however, either of these trees stood alone, or
unaccompanied by its counterpart, by it both of the creative principles were understood. By these ideas is suggested the thought which
among a certain school of psychologists of the present century seems to be gaining ground, namely: that man is a dual entity, or, in

other words, that he has a subjective mind and an objective self, which so long as this life endures must co-operate or work together.

In the following descriptions of Egyptian emblems, will be perceived some of the changes which finally took place relative to the idea

of sex in the god-idea.

In the museum of Egyptian antiquities in Berlin is a sepulchral tablet representing the Tree of Life. This emblem figures the trunk of a

tree, from the top of which emerges the bust of a woman—Netpe. She is the goddess of heavenly existence, and is administering to the
deceased the water and the bread of life, the latter of which is represented by a substance in the form of cakes or rolls. The time at
which this tablet was found is not known, but it is supposed to belong to the period of the XIXth dynasty, or about the time of
Rameses II., 1400 years B.C.

There is also in the Berlin museum another representation of the Egyptian Tree of Life, in which the trunk has given place to the

entire body of a woman. This, also, is Netpe, who is still spiritual wisdom or the maternal principle. We are informed by Forlong that
Diana was worshipped by the Amazons under a sacred tree.(12) From this symbol the tree, which grew first into the figure of a divine
woman, and later assumed the form of a divine man, arose the emblem of the cross.

12) Rivers of Life, vol. i., p. 70.

On the Nineveh tablets is pictured a Tree of Life which is surrounded by winged spirits, bearing in their hands the pine cone, a

symbol indicating life, and which is said to have the same significance as the crux-ansata, or cross, among the Egyptians.

In later ages, the Tree of Life, i. e., the divine man, or cross, or both together, furnish immortal food to those who lay hold upon

them, exactly in the same manner as did Netpe, the goddess of wisdom, or spiritual life, in former times. According to the testimony of
Barlow, this is the subject "most frequently symbolized on early Christian sepulchral tablets and monuments."(13) Christ's body was
the "bread of life," and his blood was the "wine from the Tree of Life," of which to partake was life eternal. The cross, as in earlier
religions, represented completeness of life. The jambu tree, the Buddhist god-tree, is in the shape of a cross.(14)

13) Essays on Symbolism, p. 74.

14) Wilford, Asiatic Researches.

Among the Kelti a tall oak was not only a symbol of the Deity, but it was Jupiter himself, while the earth from which it sprang was

the Great Mother. Throughout Europe, in all ages, the oak has received divine honors. The fact that under its branches Jew, Pagan,
and Christian alike swore their most solemn oaths, shows that its veneration was not confined to any particular nation or locality.

The sacredness of the oak among the Druids is well attested by all writers who have dealt with this interesting people. In Rome its

branches formed the badge of victory worn by conquering heroes, this emblem being the highest mark of distinction which could be
conferred upon them.

Forlong assures us that the oak was even more worshipped at the West than was the sacred Ficus at the East. Like it, the wood of

the oak must be used

"to call down the sacred fire from Heaven and gladden in the yule (Suiel or Seul) log of Christmas-tide even Christian fires, as well

as annually renew with fire direct from Ba-al, on Beltine day, the sacred flame on every public and private hearth, and this from the
temples of Meroe on the Nile, to the farthest icy forests and mountains of the Sklavonian."(15)

15) Faiths of Man in All Lands, vol. i., p. 68.

Among the Druids, the mistletoe was also sacred especially when entwining the oak. Together they represented the Tree of Life, or

the two generating agencies throughout Nature. Of the species of it which grows on the oak, Borlaise says that they deified the
mistletoe and were not to look upon it but in the most devout and reverential manner: "When the end of the year approached, they
marched with great solemnity to gather the mistletoe of the oak in order to present it to Jupiter, inviting all the world to assist in the
ceremony."(16)

16) Borlaise.

According to the Latin writer Pliny, the "Druids have nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows,

provided it be an oak." This plant, which is called All Heal, although sought after with the greatest religious ardor, is seldom found, but
should the people who go forth at Christmas time in large numbers succeed in finding it they immediately set about preparing feasts
under the tree upon which it grows; at the same time, in the most solemn manner, two white bulls are brought forth to be sacrificed.
After the feast has been prepared and the sacrifice made ready, the priest ascends the tree and with a golden pruning-knife cuts the
sacred branches of the mistletoe, dropping them into a white cloth prepared for the occasion. The bulls are then sacrificed and a prayer
offered that "God would render his own gift prosperous to those on whom he has bestowed it." They believed that administered in a
potion it would impart fecundity to any barren animal, and that it was a remedy against all kinds of poison. The branches of the
mistletoe were then distributed among the faithful, each cherishing the token as the most sacred emblem of his faith. It is thought that
the Christmas tree is a remnant of this custom.

Although the Christbaum of the Germans, the Yggdrasill of the Scandinavians, and the Christmas tree of the English speaking nations

are still regarded as belonging exclusively to Christianity, their birthplace was the far East, and their origin long anterior to our present
era. This subject will be referred to later in these pages. The palm, which in course of time became the most sacred tree of Egypt, is
said to have put forth a shoot every month during the year. At Christmas tide, or at the winter so...